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The Cool Kids
"It's the Cool Kids Show!®™©" ''-Opening theme slogan'' '''The Cool Kids is Parhelion Film's first ever film project, being made before the studio was even created. Background ''The Cool Kids is a short video created by Parhelion Films for a final project in Math 2 (Geometry). Said project had to be a video, and Kieran Murphy pitched the idea of doing "A really bad 90s-style educational video that made fun of pretty much everything." The name followed suit and was never changed: The Cool Kids. Each cast member created their character and helped create the basic premise (the group in the class consisting of Kieran Murphy, Will Ingersoll, Watson Jones, Clove Hughes & Chris London), and Will Ingersoll subsequently wrote the script. Murphy wanted to write "Interruptions" for the script, which were supposed to be "dumb, hopefully funny interludes that still contained educational material but were more for laughs than anything," and so he added those in. Watson Jones wanted to create a song for the project and subsequently wrote & composed "Tropical Proof," which was added as an interruption, the only one not written by Murphy. The Cool Kids was filmed over the course of two days, and was edited in about 4 hours the night before it was due. Plot '''''Warning: spoilers ahead! The Cool Kids are in the midst of a heated debate about whether or not the Earth is flat. Trey insists that it is; Alexander makes the point that it's not. Nigel agrees with Alexander, but Warrick just wants everyone to get along and pretty much agrees with anything anyone says. Suddenly, though, a strange man appears from nowhere: the Totally Radical Math Man. He asks what they're arguing about, and when they tell him, he lets them in on a secret solution to their problem: Math. More specifically, Logic & Proof. The Math Man explains what statements are, and how Logic & Proof can be used to solve them. An interruption then begins where Nigel insists that food & islands aren't real, where Warrick, Alexander & Trey are listening attentively. Warrick stops him and asks if he knows that Geico can save him 15% or more on car insurance. The Math Man then provides an example of a true statement: 2 + 2 = 4. He then elaborates on his previous point, coining the term "conditional statements." Nigel makes fun of the term, claiming "So, they're conditional, like they have cancer or something...?" The Math Man becomes angry, claiming that "making fun of disease is never cool" and that if he ever says anything like that again, he will "not hesitate to end his puny, mortal existence" before changing the subject. An interruption then begins where Warrick is holding a pencil. "This is your brain," he says, holding up the pencil. He then puts "Your Brain" in the Statement side of the Statement & Reasoning table, in the Given column. He points at the paper and says, "This is your brain on proof. Any questions?" This ends the interruption. The Math Man goes on to explain what a conditional statement is, giving its initial setup (If P then Q). He then gives the repeated example of a person dying in less than 90 seconds if they are trapped in space. Alexander claims that it's a "really specific example," but the Math Man responds, "Only 'cause it's relevant to the situation, my dude!" Before Alexander can fully respond, he gets back to explaining. The Math Man then explains the 3 ways of manipulating a conditional statement: converse, inverse & contrapositive. An interruption then begins where Warrick & Alexander are in an argument over who knows more about the properties of the Statement & Reasoning table. After becoming increasingly more angry, the two eventually accept that they both know about all the properties on the table and shake hands. The Math Man is revealed to be sitting behind them and, after they walk off, he exclaims, "Now that's what I call proof of concept!" The Math Man goes into further detail about what converse, inverse & contrapositive are and how they affect the basic setup of a conditional statement, additionally changing the "dying in space" explanation to show how those things affect it. An interruption the begins where "Tropical Proof" by Trey. begins playing, complete with a music video. Quadrilateral Steve makes his first extended appearance in said video. Warrick then asks the Math Man how a conditional statement can help prove a point. The Math Man explains that they'll need an initial statement, coining the "same statement, but with a modified truth value." He uses this to bring up the term "reductio ad absurdum." He uses everything he's said about Logic & Proof to explain how to prove a statement as true or false. An interruption then begins where Alexander has an existential crisis about "everything contradicting itself." They get cut off as the interruption ends. Nigel exclaims that he understands Logic & Proof now. All of the Cool Kids work with his point to eventually prove that the Earth is not flat, proving Trey wrong. The Math Man then exclaims, "Exactly! And thus, Trey forfeits the argument... and thus his life." He promptly grabs Trey and forcefully forfeits his life, causing him to disappear. Right as this happens, the episode ends. Legacy The Cool Kids grew to become a large success, and the positive feedback surrounding it encouraged Kieran Murphy to begin work on sequels, as well as the eventual formation of Parhelion Films. It also inspired many spinoffs throughout the school for other projects, and eventually for final projects in the same math class the next year. Trivia * Kieran Murphy came up with the lyrics to the episode's theme during the end of class one period by saying random lines that rhymed with each other as Watson Jones typed them up on his laptop. They were not altered. * Alex Blaisdell was not part of the group, but offered to help with tech and appear in the music video. * Quadrilateral Steve is hidden in the background of certain shots. * The reason Blaisdell became Quadrilateral Steve is because there had been an idea to have an unrelated joke character of the same name prior to the script's writing. Alex was cast since he wanted to help. * The credits shot of Matthew Huber is a complete coincidence: he was the Body Dragger, but Watson decided to film the first person he saw in the room randomly, which happened to be Huber. * Alexis Williams wanted to help out with filming, and Murphy immediately approached her and asked, "Hey, want to be a dead body?" * Murphy had two things he absolutely wanted to get into The Cool Kids no matter what before anything had even been planned or written: the interruption with two people arguing over the properties and the episode ending with the Seinfeld theme, along with the posterized footage. * Ingersoll wanted to play a character with some evil, untrustworthy undertones, but Murphy added a lot of random edits to his scenes without telling anyone. In fact, upon showing it to his class, he was nervous to see how people would react to all of the random things he hadn't told anyone about. * Murphy has stated that the "Bloopers & Outtakes" portion at the end of the episode is "rushed & incomplete," as he edited it last and it was very late at the time. He's added that there are "some really good bits that got cut out that he completely blanked on at the time," and that he still has the footage on his PC. * The bag that Alexander carries was actually a bag of salt that Ingersoll happened to have with him. Clove Hughes pictured their character doing some sort of drugs, so that was added for a subtle bit of character enhancement. * The lyrics used in theme for the intro were recorded outside on Jones' laptop. * The font used for all of the text is "Neuropol." * The title of the stock city footage in the intro is simply titled "560157795," or in some places, "Low Angle Shot of Buildings." Full Episode